But after reading through the hughes amendment (EDIT: I really should have put S.49) I hope it never gets annulled/repealed as a whole because It seems to be pro gun rights except for the full auto thing.

P.S could someone edit the title because I am a dunce and put hare instead of hate.

Title edited. Antipitas

Tom Servo

April 30, 2009, 09:20 PM

A good summary (http://www.gunlawnews.org/FOPA-86.html):

Opens up interstate sales of long guns on a limited basis.
Allows interstate transport of firearms in some circumstances.
Makes it illegal for anyone to transfer a firearm to a prohibited person.
Provides any prohibited persons can get relief of their disability by applying to the Treasury Secretary. This has been repealed in practice by the program being specifically unfunded in the federal budget.
It prevents the government from creating a list of gun owners from dealer records.
Limits the number of inspections on a dealer by the BATF without a search warrant.
Allows FFL holders to engage in business away from their normal business location, if at a ‘gun show’ in their home state.
Allows ammunition shipments through the US Postal Service (a repeal of part of GCA68).
Ended record keeping on ammunition sales, except for armor piercing (the real stuff, not what Kennedy calls armor piercing).
Prohibits civilians from possessing full-auto firearms manufactured after May 19, 1986.
Redefines 'machine gun' to include those sets of parts or parts that could be used to convert a semiautomatic firearm into a machine gun.
Adds serious drug offenses to the list of crimes receiving enhanced penalties.
Doubles the penalties for use of a machine gun, silencer or muffler in a violent federal felony.
Eliminates the FFL requirement for ammunition only dealers.
Specifically states that those disposing of personal firearm collections do not need an FFL and to get an FFL firearms do not have to be a principle business activity.
The actual bill became S.49 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d099:SN0049:). Hughe's additions were not the only ones; Senator Metzenbaum added a prohibition on the import of parts for "Saturday Night Specials," Ted Kennedy passed a continuation on the ban of interstate commerce in handguns, and Senator Inouye added a provision for a waiting period on handgun transfers.

If those names look familiar, they're all cosponsors of this year's "gun show loophole" bill, S. 843.

The Hughes amendment, which simply reads,
(...) unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun except in the case of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date of enactment.
was passed after most of the Representatives had gone home for the night. It was passed by a voice vote, which was called for and presided over by Charlie Rangel.

Now, the OP brings up a point: if this whole shebang were repealed, would it mean that all of those good provisions were moot? The answer is no. Someone would have to step in and pass legislation requiring record-keeping on ammunition sales.

Essentially, we would lose the bad elements while keeping the good ones. I'd love to see it happen. It would not be a repeal of the NFA, and for most folks, it wouldn't change anything.

After all, it's still illegal to import machineguns, and you need a manufacturing license to convert existing weapons (shortening a barrel, etc.). It would only really have one significant effect, but it is one that could keep a great many good people out of prison.

WWII veterans are passing on, and their children are finding old automatic rifles and trench brooms in the attic. If they weren't registerd by 1986 (and most weren't), there is no legal way to have these in your posession.

You can go to prison for owning it. You can go to prison for trying to sell it, even if you don't know better. Your only choice is to surrender it to law enforcement.

Heck, in a place like Chicago or New York, what happens if you get pulled over with it in your car while you're on your way to turn it in? Yeah.

M4Sherman

April 30, 2009, 10:14 PM

Ahh well The I stand corrected on the hughes amendment thing. I just dont want S.49 revoked as a whole ever due to most of the items in it are very, very reasonable (such as the "Adds serious drug offenses to the list of crimes receiving enhanced penalties")

I just wish the full auto thing would be eliminated so I could get a PPSH for less than a new car.

Tennessee Gentleman

April 30, 2009, 11:41 PM

Sherman,

I wouldn't look for that repeal anytime soon. Here is a good quote from Alan Gura who represented Dick Heller:

The solution to 922(o) will have to be political in the end. The fact is, outside the gun community, the concept of privately owned machine guns is intolerable to American society and 100% of all federal judges. If I had suggested in any way — including, by being evasive and indirect and fudging the answer — that machine guns are the next case and this is the path to dumping 922(o) — I’d have instantly lost all 9 justices. Even Scalia...You want to change 922(o)? Take a new person shooting. Work for “climate change"

I think we will do well to hang on to our AR-15s. Personally, I put the no restrictions on machine guns and other military weapons in the same category with the "citizen's militia" and the "insurrection theory". Going nowhere fast.

44 AMP

May 1, 2009, 03:05 PM

was intended to be a 'poison pill' for the whole bill (the Gun Onwer Protection act), and (as noted) was passed at the last minute, by voice vote only.

Reagan drew a lot of heat since then for signing it into law, but at the time, it was considered the breatest good for the greatest number. AND IT WAS.

Lots of us would love to be able to own new FA firearms, and have them added to the registry. Some are quite upset that they can't, and rail against Reagan's signing the bill. But the reality is that a good many people have been saved from a lot of trouble by the law, and overall it did more good than harm.

The way to get around this, is not to have an open public debate, and try to generate support for easing the FA ban, that will not work. Decades of propaganda (and there's really no other word for it) in popular entertainment showing only criminals (and govt emplyees-police/soldiers) with FA guns has done its work on the American public.

I say the way to fix the situation is to have some pro gun legislator, quietly, without fuss or fanfare, slip a line into a "must pass" bill, reading something like "change line xxxx, law abcd, to read.....," and just shut up about it if it passes. Then, after it is established law, then just follow the law, as it exists, the same way we do now.;)

Once that happens, when the antis figure out what happened and start screaming about how "anyone can buy a machine gun", we make sure the focus of the info (as best we can, anyway) is to point out that the Fed background check and (as importantly) permission from the head of local law enforcement is needed to buy one. Since the only people who can buy are already approved by both the Federal govt AND the local cops, how can they disapprove? If those approved people aren't trustworthy enough, neither are govt employees (in and out of uniform), who seldom have anywhere near the same amount of scrutiny done on them, before the govt hands them an automatic weapon.

Might not work, but why not try?

Tennessee Gentleman

May 1, 2009, 04:41 PM

Might not work, but why not try?

I think it would be worth a try. However, I learned a long time ago not to underestimate your opponent so I suspect our pals at Brady would catch it. Let's see what happens with the DC bill that wipes out all their gun control going thru now.http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/gun-rights-hang-up-dc-voting-rights-in-the-house/

M4Sherman

May 1, 2009, 11:14 PM

The main reason I posted this is because people don't seem to relies that their is alot more good in this bad.

Also That might work but we must remember that every time someone under estimates their opponent they always end up in worse shape then when they started.